Force Protection for the 21st Century Expeditionary Aerospace Forces

The United States military, force on force, is unmatched by any other country in the world. Our dominance encourages adversaries to seek asymmetrical means to thart our abilities to carry out our global leadership policies. To make an impact through the media and with the will of the American people, attacks on U.S. Forces will be highly visible and very deadly. It is predicted that over the next 15 years, terrorists will become even more sophisticated in their targeting, propaganda, and political action operations. Nation-states and/or non-governmental organizations that choose to wage war on the United States must rely on unconventional methods to attack our centers of gravity. The evolution of the Expeditionary Aerospace Force, placing highly lethal strike packages on targets with the lowest possible logistics footprint creates new challenges for operational and security forces commanders. Are the security forces optimally organized to counter future threats, symmetrical and asymmetrical, to the EAF to make it a viable military instrument of power? This is the question this project will try to answer. To begin answering this question, a historical study was accomplished to determine how and why air base defense doctrine was created. It will show how today's force protection concepts were developed based on experiences and mindset of the past. Once the historical foundation of how the Air Force addresses air base defense is poured, this project will examine two recent force protection failures, their causes as seen by independent commissions, and how the failure affected the national security strategy.